


Caged

by Licoriceallsorts



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Backstory, Gen, No Romance, No Smut, Teenage Drama, this fic goes to some dark places, we're talking about Midgar here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Licoriceallsorts/pseuds/Licoriceallsorts
Summary: Veld is always on the lookout for talented new recruits to join the Turks. There's a certain exchange student from Wutai he's had his eye on for a while, and when the opportunity arises to see just what kid's made of, Veld makes him an offer he can't refuse. After all, it's just a simple little mission to Wall Market. So easy, a child could do it. What could possibly go wrong?To see the prompts for which this fic was written, go to the notes at the end of chapter 8.Be aware that this fic goes to some dark places. Children are put in danger. Animals suffer. If you know you can't handle that, don't read.
Relationships: Cissnei & Tseng (Compilation of FFVII), Reno & Tseng (Compilation of FFVII)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 20
Collections: FF7 Fanworks Exchange '20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenjudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenjudy/gifts).



The first war was fought among the rolling wheatfields and dry sunny vineyards of the kingdoms east of Junon. They were wealthy states, and could afford the latest in military technology. This war lasted for ten years. Who won? Nobody remembers. The real winner was the company that made the weapons. By the time peace was signed, Shinra Inc was rich, and the kingdoms were poor.

The second war broke out a generation later and was fought on the great grasslands north of the Mythril Mountains. This war lasted for five years, and by the end of it nearly a million people were dead. Those left alive would have given almost anything for a world that promised peace. They were sick to the back teeth of grief and destruction.

Midgar rose swiftly. Technology was a wonderful thing. Pieter Veld, Director of Shinra’s Department of Administrative Research, felt the obligation to build a better world as a personal responsibility, worth whatever sacrifices must be made. He had a wife and child in Kalm. From his office in the central tower, he could look down at Midgar under construction and reflect on how the framework of interwoven steel girders resembled a spider web, with the Shinra Building brooding at its heart. He thought spiders got a bad rap. In truth, they were man’s best friend. Take away the spiders, and the planet would quickly be over-run by flies and maggots and all the other vermin that bred in filth. The kind of vermin that infested Wall Market.

He considered the dossier in his hand. A straightforward enough mission. So simple, a child could do it. One phone call to Don Corneo would see the matter sorted.

Or…

_Set a child to catch a child._

His experiment kept insisting she was ready to be field-tested. He suspected she was right, but even if she wasn’t, he couldn’t put off the moment of truth indefinitely. She’d sworn to run away if he didn’t let her out of the classroom soon, and she didn’t make idle threats. He’d taught her that. If ever there was a mission that had her name all over it, this was it. He couldn’t let her go alone, though.

There was another child Veld had had his eye on for a while now. You couldn’t really call him a child. A teenager. No longer a child, but not yet an adult. Veld had added this teen’s details to the file labelled _Recruitment: Pending_ , because even though he’d never done more than pass the time of day with the kid, he’d been running this department for more than fifteen years now and he knew a Turk in the raw when he saw one. 

Wute boy. Age: sixteen. Brought to Midgar on the short-lived exchange student program. The way it was supposed to work, every January Wutai sent a dozen of its most promising youth to Shinra, and Shinra in return refrained from waging war on Wutai. The program was dead in the water after two years. Wutai cancelled it, preferring war to humiliation. Most of the other scholars (if you could call them that) had drifted away from Shinra and been lost to sight. This one kid, though, had hung on. He was proud and stubborn. And tenacious.

And he had nowhere else to go.

Veld turned away from the window and made his way to central janitorial services on Floor 3 South. The clerk manning the desk consulted her roster. Her hands seemed a little nervous as she tapped the keys. “I hope he’s not in any trouble,” she said earnestly.

“Nothing like that,” the Chief Turk assured her.

“That’s a relief. He’s a good kid, even if he is a bit surly. Here we go. You should find him on Level B5, Maintenance Storeroom C.”

Veld rode the lift down to the fifth basement. The storeroom door had been left open: from the other end of the corridor he could see his target framed in the door, sitting cross-legged on the floor, screwdriver in hand, surrounded by the metal and plastic bowels of a machine that Veld, coming closer, recognised as one of the big floor polishers used to keep Shinra’s marble shining.

Maybe the kid heart Veld’s footsteps - though a Turks’s crepe-soled boots were designed to make no sound - or maybe it was Veld’s breathing he heard. Or Veld’s heartbeat. Whatever, he had sharp ears. He looked up, and though you had to think he must have felt some alarm at seeing the Director of the Turks walking purposefully towards him - or if not fear, at least surprise, his face gave nothing away. Laying down the screwdriver, he rose to his feet, wiped his oily hands on his overalls, and bowed respectfully, the way a martial artist bows to his opponent before the bout begins.

_Nice, kid_ , thought Veld. _Stylish_. _But this is a game of poker, and I hold all the cards._

“Tseng, isn’t it?”

The boy bowed again. “Yes, sir. Can I help the Director with something?”

His accent was less noticeable than it had been the last time they spoke, which must have been well over a year ago. Veld conducted his monitoring at a discrete distance. He directed his gaze to the various pieces of machinery lying at Tseng’s feet, which, he now realised, were methodically organised. As the son of a master-clockmaker, Veld knew a thing or two about moving parts. “Are you the repair man?”

“No one else could get it working. I’m good at fixing things, so they said I could try.”

He was a handsome kid. Tall for his age, too, and a little on the gangly side, arms and legs too long for his body. He’d grow some more before he was done. You could even call him pretty. Good-looking Wute boys often had that feminine cast to their features, which hard-faced easterners misread as soft.

“What about this?” said Veld, drawing his revolver from its shoulder holster. The boy didn’t flinch at the sight of the gun, though the look in his eyes changed from wary politeness ro wary interest. “Could you take this apart and put it back together?”

“I don’t know, sir. I’ve never tried.”

Veld shucked the bullets from their cylinder and handed it over. “Try.”

The boy looked him square in the face for a long minute before taking the gun. He didn’t ask why Veld had made this strange request. He’d figured out the moment he saw Veld walking towards him that the Chief Turk wasn’t here on a random whim, and he knew that if he waited patiently and did what was asked, all would eventually be revealed.

He squatted on his heels in that flexible way Wutaians seemed to find so easy, and set to work. Veld pulled up an empty crate and sat down to watch him. Neither felt the need to speak.

This kid might have eyelashes that an actress would envy, and a glossy black ponytail that shone blue under the strip lighting, but if you thought you saw anything soft in him, that would be your mistake. Before getting sent away from Wutai he’d studied in the brutal dojos of the Inner Temple. Acolytes regularly died there. Since coming to Midgar, he’d kept up his training at an emigré school in Upper Sector Three. On his measly stipend he couldn’t afford the fees, so he traded odd jobs in return for lessons. He worked out in the free company gym seven days a week.

This pretty Wute boy in the Shinra janitor overalls could break your arm with one blow - and he’d do it, Veld believed, without hesitation or remorse, if you pushed him hard enough. For all his graceful bowing and his humble yes-sirs there was plenty of aggression in this boy, plenty of spit and bile and resentment. When he was fourteen years old, back in Wutai, he had killed a man. The bald truth was right there in his file, if you knew how to read between the lines.

The masters of the Inner Temple hadn’t known what to do with him. This low-caste brat, this peasant boy from a backwater village with a shack for a school, had placed third in the whole of Wutai in the imperial civil service entrance exams - and they had set him, this human treasure, to Shinra, because they couldn’t control him. Because they were afraid of anything they couldn’t control. Morons. Kak. Tseng here had had a lucky escape. The powers that be in Wutai were nothing but war-criminals. They would rather see every last one of their sons dead than move with the times.

Well, their loss was Shinra’s gain.

The kid was doing a good job on the revolver. He didn’t rush it, didn’t let Veld’s watchful eyes faze him. He worked methodically, taking the time to memorise how each piece fitted into the whole, learning as he went along. “You like guns?” Veld asked him.

“I don’t know much about them, sir.”

“Ever fired one?”

“Only a gun-lance, sir.”

Ah, yes, the gun lance. A piece of technology dating back to the last century, unwieldy combination of firearm and bayonet. The Crescent Unit’s weapon of choice.

At last the revolver was re-assembled. With a bow, Tseng presented it to its owner. Veld spun the cylinder, tested the trigger. “Good job, kid. You could have been an engineer.” Having read Tseng’s file, Veld knew what the boy had written on his program registration form when he’d arrived in Midgar two years ago. _Career goals: weapons engineer. Materia scientist._

“Could I?” said the boy-janitor. A faint note of sarcasm had been allowed into his voice. _Do you think I’m stupid?_

Low-caste kids from nameless Wuteng villages did not become engineers. To the Masters of the Temple, Shinra’s science was blasphemy, and Shinra had never had the slightest intention of letting their hostages get anywhere near valuable corporate information.

“The last time we spoke,” said Veld, “You were working in Educational Outreach, making photocopies. Now you’re in General Maintenance, polishing floors.”

Tseng dropped his gaze to the floor. He didn’t want Veld to see that these words had struck a nerve, but rage like his wasn’t something you could hide. As far as Veld was concerned, Tseng’s anger was perfectly justified. The kid was brilliant. He knew his own worth. There was so much ambition suffocating in his boy, so much potential being wasted, it made Veld want to punch something too. Shinra created these time bombs, he thought angrily, made them casually, almost carelessly, tossed them away without a second thought, and then acted surprised when they went off.

“The war has made things difficult for everyone,” said Tseng. “I’m lucky to have a job.” He almost managed to make it sound like he meant it. Almost.

“Why don’t you go home? Fight for your country?”

It was a cruel question. Veld knew the meaning of the mark on Tseng’s forehead. _Tainted_. If he went back to Wutai, anyone could kill him on sight, and the Temple would pay a bounty for his scalp as long as the tattoo was still visible. Veld didn’t ask because he wanted to know the answer. He asked to see how Tseng would react.

Tseng lifted his chin and looked Veld square in the face again. It was quite deliberate: he was allowing Veld to watch his mind at work. He was thinking it through, thinking about why this old Turk in front of him, a man with a reputation for ruthless efficiency, a man said to know everyone’s secret, would come to him with such a question. Commander Veld was President Shinra’s right hand man. He had all the power this world could offer. Who was Tseng? Nothing. Nobody. A boy; an unskilled worker; an immigrant. And yet he had something this powerful man wanted. Veld watched the understanding take shape in Tseng’s eyes, so intelligent, so cautious, so… hungry. Yes, _hungry_ was the word. He saw that Tseng knew he knew the meaning of the mark.

“I chose to leave Wutai,” said Tseng. “I wanted to come here. I will never go back.” he paused, opened his mouth as if add something, hesitated, then almost spoke, but stopped himself, and after thinking a little longer, finally said, “I’ll never go on my knees to _them_.”

Veld was touched by this small admission. The boy wasn’t normally one to show his feelings. It seemed he’d somehow managed to win Tseng’s trust, if just a little. “Quite right,” he said. “A man must have his pride.”

“I’m not ashamed to do this work. It’s useful, and they pay me fairly.”

Veld didn’t think they paid him fairly, but he hadn’t come here to argue that point. “They’re lucky to have you. Mopping toilets and emptying rubbish bins must get pretty boring, if repairing that broken polisher is the highlight of your day. You’re wasted here, Tseng. You know it. I know it. I’ve read your file. I want you to work for me.”

“No.”

Of course he’d seen the offer coming from a mile off. “You’re turning me down flat?” Veld was more intrigued than offended. At the very least, people usually took a little time to think about it. “Don’t you even want to know how much you’d get paid?”

“I’m probably going to leave Shinra soon.”

“Like all the others?”

“There’s no future for me here.”

“There could be, if you wanted one.”

The boy shrugged as gracefully as he bowed.

“If you left,” said Veld, “Where would you go?”

“Midgar’s a big city. The world is even bigger. I could go anywhere.”

“You must have quite a nest egg put away if you can think about a big adventure like that.”

“Nest egg?”

“Money. Savings.”

The boy looked away. As Veld well knew, he had barely a spare gil to his name. He didn’t even have a bank account. He lived in a cheap windowless room in a Shinra hostel in the Sector Three slums, and his meals and his rail pass were subsidised, but even so, his wages only just covered his outgoings. He was always signing up for overtime. In short, the kid was cornered, financially speaking.

Veld leaned forward. “Listen. I have a very particular job that needs doing, and I need a very specific kind of person to do it. You, Tseng, fit the bill. It’d be a one-off. I’ll square it with your bosses. Call it a contract job if you like. It’d pay well.”

“How much?”

Veld named a sum so large that even this boy, with all his self-control, could not stop his eyes from widening.

He was tempted. Veld could see that. Who wouldn’t be? That kind of money changed lives. But it wasn’t just the money - or rather, it wasn’t the money in and of itself. Money was power. Above all, money gave you the power to decide what to do with your life. Money was freedom, and this boy had all the ambitions his talents entitled him to.

But even more than that, more than wealth, more than freedom, more than anything, what this boy craved was _recognition_. Veld suspected he was the first person ever to offer Tseng what Tseng knew he was worth. That was why the kid would take this job… And if he decided to join the Turks when the job was over, it would be his pride and his ambition - and his loneliness - that brought him into the fold. Not the money.

“What’s the job?” said Tseng.

Veld stood up. “This area’s too public. Let’s go to my office. I’ll explain everything there.”


	2. Chapter 2

The atmosphere inside the Higawari Diner on Windmill Square in Wall Market was hot, damp, and greasy. Tseng sat perched on a red vinyl stool at one of the small tables, trying not to wriggle as a bead of sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. His partner was placing their order at the counter, standing tip-toe to make herself more visible among the crush of hungry customers. Most of them were waiting for a takeaway.

This wasn’t at all what he’d had in mind when he accepted the old Turk’s offer.

He’d pictured himself garbed in one of their tailored suits: spotless white cuffs, dark silk tie, with buffed leather shoes to match, and - even though he’d know it could never in a million years really happen - a revolver of his own in a dragon leather holster, tucked under his arm. When the old Turk had mentioned a partner, his imagination had immediately conjured up images of various Turks he sometimes saw around the building, grown men and women who went about their business exuding an aura of quiet confidence. A glow of power.

And yet here he was, in this grubby slum diner, on a cracked vinyl footstool that was pinching his butt-cheek, dressed in ragged jeans, an old grey hoodie with holes through the elbows, and yellow plastic flip-flops, the kind of outfit you could buy for a gil, all in, at the cheap end of the second-hand clothes bazaar in Under-Three. And his ‘glamorous’ Turk partner was a thirteen-year-old girl.

Returning from the counter, she dropped onto the stool opposite and spoke around the licorice and raspberry mako pop she’d been sucking for the last half-hour. “Whatcha thinking about, Tongue?”

“Tseng,” he corrected her.

“What?” She took the mako pop out of her mouth, as if that would improve her hearing, and gazed at him with huge, round, golden eyes far too old for her baby face.

“My name. It’s Tseng. With a T.”

“Tuh-sung?” The lollipop had stained her lips a red so dark it was almost black. Her thick reddish-gold hair was tied in two bunches, and her gingham school uniform was too tight for her flat-chested frame. Something about her whole get-up made him feel uneasy, but he couldn’t put into words the reason why. To him she seemed like a little girl playing at being an adult pretending to be a little girl.

“I can remember your name, Cissnei. You could try to remember mine.”

“I got it. Tuh-sing, tuh-sang, tuh-sung,” she laughed.

Normally a taunt like that would have made his hackles rise, but somehow, he couldn’t feel angry at this girl. Maybe it was because she was so tiny. Maybe it was the mischief in her eyes. She wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was just having fun.

Sitting on that low stool, her feet barely touched the ground. She could have passed for ten, or nine even. No one would guess that beneath those white knee socks and scuffed lace-up boots she had a knife strapped to her ankle, and a length of wire coiled in the sole of her shoe. Commander Veld hadn’t given Tseng any weapons, but he _had_ put materia in Tseng’s flip-flops: a Cure inside the right thong, and an Ice inside the left. He’d spent the last three days on the Turks’ firing range, honing his casting.

“Is this your first time in Wall Market?” she asked him.

“No.”

He must have come down here a dozen times at least, in the two years he’d been in Midgar. The first time was only a month after he arrived. He’d been looking for one of his fellow exchange students. Belka was a Crane Clan boy, and so could neither touch nor, strictly speaking, even allow his eyes to look upon the dead body of any animal. That included human beings. Shinra Inc., either not understanding the significance of his _bhakti_ status or, more probably, not caring, saw that he’d written _Career Goals: Healer_ on his form, and for his first rotation assigned him to work as a porter in the company health clinic on the seventeenth floor. On the third day, he was told to take a dead body to the morgue. He refused, was reprimanded, and took the rebuke in silence, mostly because he scarcely understood a word of it. None of them did, back then, not even Tseng, who had spent the entire boat journey practising his language skills on anyone willing to talk to him.

That night he confessed to Tseng that he thought he might have done something wrong. The next morning, his bunk was empty. The other boys immediately turned to Tseng, as they always did, and Tseng, as he always did, shouldered the obligation. For as long as he could remember, that had been the way of it. Even back in his home village, the other children had looked to him for their lead.

The exchange students were allowed one day off a week. For a whole month Tseng used that precious free time - hours he could have spent in study or at the gym - searching for Belka, without success. At the end of the month the program coordinator assembled the boys in one of the lower level meeting rooms and informed them, through a translator, that Belka had, very sadly, passed away.

Then the translator and the coordinator had a little conversation between themselves, using a language they assumed the exchange students wouldn’t understand.

 _Poor child,_ the translator sighed, _What happened to him?_

 _They’re not sure_ , said the coordinator, a motherly woman with a bun of brown hair and tired eyes. _They think gorgers got him, but they said he must have been in the water for at least three weeks._

_The road between Under-Five and Under-Six. Close to where the plate collapsed. There’s a river there._

_He was probably trying to get to Wall Market. Runaways always do._

_That place is worse than any monster,_ said the sad coordinator. _It devours children._

_Shinra ought to do something. Shut it down. Or clean it up._

The coordinator bobbed her head in agreement. _No funding for it. Always the same excuse. No political will is more like it - “_

Suddenly it dawned on them both that Tseng was listening. They saw that he had understood, but they didn’t know what he was thinking. They didn’t know that two weeks earlier he’d spent a whole afternoon and evening searching for Belka in Wall Market - searching for a boy who was already beyond help, rotting in the mud at the bottom of a polluted river. He’d come all the way from Wutai only to die like that. And for what? The honour of a Clan that had rejected him? Belka was a fool, and always had been. His people wouldn’t have allowed him to be chosen for the program in the first place if he’d been of any value to them.

 _What him happen now?_ Tseng’s tongue stumbled over the alien word shapes. Listening was easier than speaking. Switching to Wuteng, he asked the translator, “His family must have his ashes. Who will organise the cremation?”

“You don’t have to worry about any of that, Tseng. Shinra will take care of everything.” She smiled at him compassionately, perhaps mistaking his sudden silence for grief.

“So,” Cissnei interrupted his reflections, “Do you know your way around? If we get separated, could you find your way back to the mako pop stand?”

“Yes.”

Belka had been the first boy to abandon the program, but as the months, passed others had followed him, and Tseng had felt duty-bound to establish the fate of each. Shinra, Inc. didn’t seem to care whether they stayed or left, whether they lived or died. Tseng wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the runaways’ stipends were still being paid - though without a bank account, no one could access them. Where did the money go? Into limbo?

Sometimes he found the boys he was looking for washing dishes in restaurants or ironing shirts in laundries. Some simply vanished. He liked to think they’d left Midgar. A few got lucky. One was adopted by an old Wuteng couple who owned a chain of pachinko parlours; another, the cleverest in their cohort after Tseng, got taken on as an apprentice at a radio repair shop. It irked Tseng to think they would be considered more successful than he.

If he’d wanted to spend his life sweeping floors, he might as well have stayed in Wutai.

Recently he’d started thinking seriously about going to work for Don Corneo. Things seemed to have turned out all right there for Huan-Bo, a ham-fisted giant of a boy who, like Belka, had been nothing but an embarrassment to his family back in Wutai, but who had found his niche as hired muscle under Don Corneo’s roof. If the Don could find a use for simple-minded Huan-Bo, then surely he would understand the value of a Tseng, who could punch just as hard as Huan-Bo and do so many other things besides.

And yet… The thought of becoming yet another of the Don’s Wuteng collectibles was not appealing. It irritated the raw places in Tseng’s soul.

Something hard and cold pricked the back of his hand. Cissnei was prodding him with a fork, trying to get his attention. “You don’t say much, do you?”

“No.”

“That’s because you’re smart. The Chief said you were really smart. He likes you a lot. Did you know that? Boy, are you lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Do you have any idea how many kids would _kill_ to be in your shoes? It’s not easy getting into the Turks, you know. Like, one in a thousand. No, more like one in a million.”

Tseng wondered if that was true. People said it was hard to get into the Turks. They also said the only way to leave the Turks was in a body bag. The old Turk was full of talk, like everybody in Shinra, but in Tseng’s experience, you’d have to be stupid to believe anything would come of it.

“I don’t want to be a Turk,” he told her.

Cissnei’s golden eyes widened into enormous dinner-plates of astonishment. “Are you _crazy_?” she gasped. “This is the best job _ever._ ”

The Turks are Shinra’s clean-up crew. You all have dirty hands.”

“Right,” said Cissnei fiercely, thin shoulders squared as if gearing up for battle, “First of all, somebody has to do it. Second of all, we are the best fucking people you will ever meet and Commander Veld is the best boss you could ever have. He’s awesome. We all look out for each other, and he takes care of all of us. Can you show me another department in Shinra where they’ve got each other’s backs? And third of all, the pay is really good. And fourth of all, you don’t actually know what Turks do, no one does except us Turks, so shut up. And fifthly of all - who the fuck are you to look down on people with dirty hands, Mr Shinra Janitor?”

She had a point. He was hardly in a position to look down on anyone. “I’ve made you angry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Boy, you should be sorry for talking out of your arse. You just make yourself look idiotic.”

“Don’t call me boy, girl.”

“Why not? You are a boy, boy.”

“I’m your elder. You should show me respect.”

Cissnei snorted. “Oh really? Listen, boy, I think we might have a little misunderstanding. You’re not in charge of this mission just because you’re older than me. In the Turks, it’s what you can do that counts. And anyway, I’ve been training for this mission for the last three years and you’ve only been on the job for what, three days? So I guess that makes me _your_ elder. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, buddy.”

The waitress arrived with Cissnei’s order: chop suey, marche fritters, curry fries and a strawberry milkshake. “Oh wow,” she sighed happily. “Smell those spices, Tseng. So good! If you want some, just help yourself.”

“That’s not real Wuteng food.”

“Who cares? It’s hot and it’s delicious.”

She tried winding a mass of noodles around her fork. They kept unravelling. Tseng took up the set of balsawood chopsticks lying beside her table mat, snapped them apart, and deftly twirled a bite-sized mouthful. “Like that,” he said. “You try.”

Cissnei laughed. “No way! Not in front of an expert.” She shoved a sloppy forkful into her mouth and mumbled, between chews, “If I tried eating with those things, I’d just embarrass myself.”

The waitress returned with Tseng’s food: vegetable rice and a mug of black coffee. He wasn’t really hungry. To tell the truth, he was a little nervous. When he’d agreed to this job, he’d assumed he would be with a real Turk who would do all the heavy lifting, but instead he’d been given this little girl to protect, and a mission to complete while making sure she came to no harm. What if he had to choose between them? Well, that wasn’t difficult. He’d choose her, of course. They could always come back and finish the mission another day.

Cissnei was shoveling fries and noodles down her throat like there was no tomorrow. Did she always eat like this? How did she stay so skinny? “Where do you put all that food?” he asked her.

“Shut up. I just have a really fast metabolism, okay?”

That was when it hit him: He liked this girl.

There was just something about her. A kind of glow. She was very pretty, of course, but it wasn’t that. More a sort of energy she radiated. What would you call it? Happiness? Maybe their language had some better, more precise word, but if it did, Tseng had yet to learn it. He wouldn’t have had much use for it anyway. The last time he’d felt happy, he’d been ten years old.

Six years ago. He was sixteen now. Sixteen! Nowadays people lived to be eighty or ninety. Even a hundred was not unheard of. How had he let himself to fall into the rut of thinking of life as already essentially over, with nothing to look forward to but hard work, humiliation, and failure? He was only sixteen. He’d barely even begun.

Too much of his last six years had been spent among people whom life had beaten down and kicked around, that was the problem. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be in the company of someone whose candle burned so bright. 

He sensed that he could trust her. That, too, was something he hadn’t felt in a long time. More: he sensed that she trusted him back. But why? What had he done to earn her trust? Was it because Commander Veld had chosen him as her partner? Was her faith in her leader so absolute? Tseng wasn’t sure if he trusted the old Turk, but Cissnei clearly trusted him with her life. He wondered what that must feel like, to trust and believe in someone beyond any shadow of a doubt. Like being home, he supposed. Safe at home. Like you could finally relax. 

Her plate had been scraped clean. She eyed his own, half-eaten. “Don’t you want the rest?”

“I’m full.”

“Oh. All right then.” She laid her fork down. “I guess this is it.”

“Are you ready?”

“I am _so_ ready.” Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “I was born ready. I was born for this. Are _you_ ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“My heart’s pounding,” she whispered.

“On my count,” he said. “Three, two, one - “


	3. Chapter 3

“Run!” yelled Cissnei.

The two of them leapt to their feet, knocking over the stools on which they’d been sitting as they turned to head for the exit.

“Hey!” roared the man at the counter, “Those little punks! They haven’t paid!”

Tseng didn’t expect to make it far. A few steps, maybe, before someone grabbed them. But the startled customers pulled back, clearing a path. Cissnei was already at the door. Tseng had to dig his heels in so as not to crash into her.

The door was sliding open.

“Get those rats!” shouted Counter-Man.

Tseng found himself staring into the faces of a well-dressed middle-aged couple. Tourists. He shoved Cissnei through the door and past them. Her hand found his and held on tight. “Don’t lose me.” She made it sound like an order.

Someone so small would be easy to lose. He tightened his own grip. “Come on - “

They darted through the crowds, zigging and zagging. Tseng kept his head low. Cissnei was so small she didn’t need to. Somewhere behind them Counter-Man was yelling, “Damn brats! Where’d they get to?”

They’d reached the bottom of a short flight of stairs. “This way,” said Tseng. Up the steps, left, straight ahead, duck under the low-hanging fairy lights, up more stairs, through a chocobo ranch-themed bar strewn with straw, down the stairs on the other side - Tseng and Cissnei had to make a sudden leap to avoid the drunkard slumped on the bottom step - and then they plunged into the warren of dark alleyways and blind corners round the back of the Honeybee Inn. The music was fainter here. The stale air smelt of piss and weed and vomit.

Cissnei pulled her hand from his death-drip and gave it a good shake. “Now what?” she asked.

A little way down the alley three men huddled close together, talking quietly. Hearing Cissnei, they glanced round. “You kids looking for trouble?” one shouted. “Fuck off out of it.”

“This way,” said Tseng, turning into an even darker, narrower, smellier alleyway.

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“Hey pretty babies,” cooed a voice from a shadowed doorway, “You kids lost?”

Tseng grabbed her hand again and pulled her into a run.

For himself he wasn’t worried. He’d dealt with Wall Market thugs before. They had no real appetite for a fight and would normally back off if you stood your ground, preferring easier prey. Prey like Cissnei. She talked big, as if she were a grown-up already, but she wasn’t, she was just a little kid. The old Turk had said she knew more than a dozen ways to kill a man, and maybe that was true, theoretically, but it didn’t alter the fact that she was barely five feet tall and weighed less than a new-hatched chocobo. A kid like her shouldn’t be running around Wall Market after midnight doing Turk business. She shouldn’t be in the Turks at all. She should be safe at home, tucked up in bed with her teddy bears. He should never have agreed to the Old Turk’s proposal.

“Looks like a dead end,” said Cissnei.

They had come to The Wall. A security lamp fixed to a metal post filled the cul de sac in which they stood with a harsh yellow light. _Fuck Shinra,_ read the graffiti splashed across the concrete. _Plank is God_. _Donz Boyz Rule. For a good time call 903-8520 and ask for Jaimé._

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said. “We were supposed to get caught.”

“I’m aware.”

Cissnei grinned. “We’re just too good at making a quick getaway, huh, partner? Yay us! I guess we’ll just have to go back now, hang around until they spot us - “

“No.” He grabbed her wrist.

“Hey - “ She tried to yank herself free, but he was easily too strong for her. “What the fuck, Tseng? Let go of me.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“What?”

“This is too dangerous. I’m taking you home - “

He didn’t know how she did it. One moment he was holding her wrist; the next, she’d flipped him around into an arm lock and was bending his hand back so that he feared the bones might snap. “Take yourself home if you’re so scared. Amateur!” With one well-aimed kick she dead-legged him; he buckled and fell to his knees. Cissnei sprang backwards. “A Turk completes her mission by whatever means necessary,” she declared, before spinning on her heel and sprinting away.

Okay. The girl had some moves. Fair enough. He’d underestimated her, and he’d got what he deserved. Tseng struggled to his feet, pins and needles surging through his right leg, and hobbled in pursuit back the way they had come: round a corner, squeezing between piles of beer crates, past more dark doorways, the throbbing and the music growing louder by the second -

From somewhere not too far ahead he heard her cry out, though whether that cry was in fear or in anger, he couldn’t tell. Knowing Cissnei, he guessed anger. He put on a burst of speed he didn’t know was in him, but as he did so, the corner of the building that blocked his line of sight briefly lit up with a faint green glow. Static electricity crackled in the air, and he picked up a whiff of that sweet-sour stench which the Temple called the Odour of Sanctity, and Shinra called the odour of mako.

Someone was casting materia. Cissnei hadn’t been given any materia. Tseng was the one with the materia. Were they throwing it at her, was she their target? If they’d hurt her, he’d kill them. 

He ran around the corner, straight into a circle of light cast by a naked lightbulb set over a shuttered door. Not far ahead, blocking his path, a hulking shadow loomed, its shoulders as wide as a plough-buffalo, its outline haloed by the flashing neon glow of Wall Market’s main drag, only a few meters away. “Get out of my way,” Tseng warned.

A long, loud snuffling snore was the only reply.

He looked down. There, on the ground, at the shadow’s feet, lay Cissnei, fast asleep.

“Tseng?” said the shadow.

How did it know his name?

The shadow stepped over Cissnei and came closer. Tseng backed away. A monster that could speak? He’d never heard of such a thing before. And it knew his name. It could _pronounce_ his name. Nobody in Midgar ever pronounced his name properly, except -

It came into the light, no monster, of course, merely an overgrown boy, blinking small eyes in a round moon face. The mark of shame was tattooed on his forehead.

“Huan-Bo?” said Tseng.

“Tseng-ah!” The big boy clapped his hands together in unfeigned delight. “It _is_ you. Dear friend, it gladdens this heart to see you in good health.” He used the mode appropriate for age-mates. His accent was northern, aristocratic.

Tseng gave the customary response, “Heaven rejoices in your kind thoughts, dear friend,” before pushing past him to kneel beside Cissnei. “Bo-ah, did you do this?”

“I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t touch her. She’s just sleeping.”

Cissnei let rip another snore and turned onto her side, muttering softly. Tseng tried shaking her shoulder, but of course she didn’t wake, and he didn’t have a Remedy. There was nothing he could do now but wait until the spell wore off.

Huan-Bo came to stand beside him, looking down at the sleeping girl. “That one’s very pretty.”

There was something in the big boy’s voice, a breathlessness, an eagerness, that set Tseng’s teeth on edge. He remembered Huan-Bo had always been like this with women, even when they were ten years old. One afternoon they had all skimped on their chores and sneaked into town, because an older boy had told them there was a hole in the roof of the women’s bathhouse, and if you put your eye to it you could see the girls naked. Huan-Bo, unwilling to wait his turn, had got into a scuffle with Belka, and the two of them had gone crashing through the roof-thatch and landed in the bath-water, where they were set upon screaming, bare-breasted, wet-haired women who beat them till they bled. Back at the Temple, the Master of the First Year beat them all over again with bamboo sticks. Everybody else learnt their lesson from this experience, but Huan-Bo, it seemed, could not. Every few months he would go back, drawn there like a swallow to its nesting place, and someone would catch him making a new peephole. Lady pilgrims to the Temple complained that he’d tried to touch them. If his father had not been one of Lord Kisaragi’s bannermen, he would have had his eyes put out.

“Shame of your ancestors,” the Father Abbot had once rebuked him, “You will die in a whorehouse.” And now here he was in Wall Market. The Father Abbot had foretold the truth, for a change.

“Is that one Tseng-ah’s girlfriend?” Huan-Bo licked his lips.

Repulsive. Pitiable. Pitiable _because_ he was so repulsive. Tseng answered with more gentleness than he felt, “Bo-ah, she’s just a little girl. Why did Huan-Bo cast Sleep on her?”

“Only Sleep is permitted now. Huan-Bo had Fire, but Cheffie took it away. Fire was too much fun to play with.”

 _Cheffie_? Was Huan-Bo trying to say ‘Chief’ _?_ “Bo-ah, do you mean Don Corneo?”

“Huan-Bo doesn’t work for the Don now. The Don didn’t want this one under his roof any more. The Don said this one was a dirty boy. He sold Huan-Bo to Cheffie for carrying heavy things.”

 _Sold?_ Now, that was an interesting word. Tseng sat back on his heels, arms folded across his knees, thinking. Huan-Bo hunkered down beside him. Although he kept looking longingly at Cissnei, he kept his hands to himself.

“Bo-ah - “

“Unh?”

“When you say ‘sold’, do you mean someone gave Don Corneo gil for you? Did this man, Cheffie, give the Don money?”

“What he gave him, I don’t know. Huan-Bo stays with Cheffie now. If you don’t work, you don’t eat, Tseng-ah. That’s the same rule the whole world over.”

“Why did the Don sell you? What did Bo-ah do?”

The big boy stared at the ground. He seemed ashamed. “Don’t make me tell.”

“It’s all right. Don’t be afraid. Bo-ah must tell Tseng.”

An empty beer bottle lay nearby. Huan-Bo began to spin it with his finger, muttering something under his breath.

“What?” said Tseng.

“I touched his bride!” Huan-Bo shouted, switching out of Wuteng. “I touched her titty. I wanted to fuck her. I’m a dirty flea!”

He lumbered to his feet. Tseng also stood up. In the same moment a voice from the next alley over called out, “Meathead, who the fuck you talking to? You caught those kids yet?”

 _Cheffie_. Chef. The man behind the counter at the Higawari Diner -

“Meathead, you moron, answer me!”

Huan-Bo cowered. His face was full of fear. Tseng said, “He’s the one who bought you?”

“Listen, you dumb fat waste of food, I’ve had it with your screw-ups. If those kids get away it’s the pits for you this time. You hear me?”

The leather bracer on Huan-Bo’s wrist began glowing green.

“Don’t - “ Tseng tried to push him away, but it was like trying to move a mountain. There was only one thing for it. He had to run. Run fast, run away, then come back and save Cissnei -

Huan-Bo’s hand clamped on his shoulder. “Tseng-ah, I’m sorry.”

Tseng only had time to think, “No -”


	4. Chapter 4

A splitting headache woke him.

He lay there for a while with his eyes shut, partly because his head hurt so badly but mostly because he was pretty certain he wasn’t going to like what he saw when he opened them. The floor beneath him was bare, cold concrete. He could hear other people close by, shuffling around, breathing, talking. They sounded like children. The rattle of tin spoons against tin plates. The high-pitched fizzing of a fluorescent light bulb. Every noise produced a faint echo. He was in some kind of enclosed space, stuffy and damp, like a basement.

It would be reasonable to conclude that he was being held prisoner. By whom? Cheffie? Don Corneo?

“Hey, sleeping beauty, if you’re awake, stop pretending you ain’t.”

The voice was a young boy’s voice, raspy, nasal, breaking. Tseng opened his eyes.

Peering right back at him, far too close for comfort, were two extraordinarily bright eyes, so bright that at first glance you could mistake them for SOLDIER eyes; but SOLDIER eyes gave off an unnatural glow, and these didn’t. It astonished Tseng that the language spoken in Midgar had no word for the colour of such eyes, which were neither blue nor green nor grey but all three at once, like - like a stream running over mossy rocks, reflecting a clear sky. How could they lack a word for this? You never saw such eyes in Wutai, but here they were not that uncommon. The feral intelligence glinting in the depths of this particular pair was a much rarer commodity.

Sharp features, pale slum-dweller’s skin, face smudged with dirt. Red hair, wild red, matted and tangled. What a foxy-looking kid. Tseng guessed he was maybe thirteen years old.

The human fox-cub grinned from ear to ear. His teeth were white, even, and good. “Knew you was faking it. Bet you wish you hadn’t woken up now, huh? But you gotta face the truth eventually. It is what it is. How’s your head?”

Tseng cautiously brushed his fingertips over the spot where the pain seemed centred, and encountered a clot of dried blood.

“Yeah,” the fox-cub nodded. “That’s nasty, not gonna lie. But it looks worse than it is. Head wounds always bleed like fuck. Look, I saved your breakfast for you. Hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Ah, c’mon man, you gotta keep your strength up. I fought Jude for this.” The fox-cub pointed at a bigger boy slumped in a corner, dried blood crusting his upper lip.

Tseng looked around, counting. Eleven of them in total, counting himself. He seemed to be the oldest. All boys. No sign of Cissnei.

The room they were in was about twenty metres square, windowless, with bare plaster walls, and strip lights flickering overhead. Four futons made of cheap mattress ticking were shoved against one wall. The large metal door in the opposite wall was firmly closed and probably locked, but Tseng would test that in a minute. A second, narrower door stood slightly ajar. Tseng guessed it led to a toilet. He hoped so. He couldn’t see any alternative, not so much as a bucket.

Probably they had a separate room for the girl delinquents. Cissnei was probably locked up there. She might even be right next door. It probably wouldn’t be hard to find her. All he had to do was get out of this room first. One thing at a time.

“C’mon, eat this shit,” said the fox-cub. “It just tastes worse the longer you leave it.”

He held out a chipped enamel bowl containing some kind of porridge. It didn’t look remotely appetising. Yet the kids here were willing to fight each other over it. Tseng thought with regret of the meal he’d left half-eaten at the diner, and took the bowl. “Thank you.”

“No probs, mate.”

He swallowed a mouthful. It tasted of nothing, and it sat in his stomach like a lump of wet kitchen paper. The fox-cub watched him eat in silence. Tseng wondered what the kid’s game was.

When he had finished eating, his new friend took the bowl and spoon from his hands, walked over to where a pile of similar bowls stood stacked, and added Tseng’s to the top of the pile. He was a really skinny kid. A length of rope knotted round his waist held up his khaki shorts. The shoulder-blades jutting under his cactuar t-shirt made it look like he was sprouting wings. But he had to be stronger than he looked. The kid whose nose he’d bloodied had at least thirty pounds on him. He might prove a useful ally, if he _was_ an ally.

Back at Tseng’s side, the fox-cub sank to the floor cross-legged in a single fluid movement. He gave the impression of being someone capable of squeezing through the tightest of spaces. A phrase that had long puzzled Tseng sprang to mind: _Cat burglar._ All of a sudden, it made sense.

“So, topsider,” the fox-cub began, “You got a name?”

“I’m not a topsider.”

“Sure you’re not. Whatever you say. Topsider.”

“Why do you think I’m a topsider?”

The fox-cub grinned. “I can just tell. You got that fresh air smell about you. So - name?”

“Tseng.”

“Song? Like, sing-song?”

“Do you know,” said Tseng, “if I had a gil for every time I heard that - “

“Yeah yeah, you could buy up the Shinra Corp and retire to Costa del Sol. I get it, Tuh-song-chan. See, I can speak your lingo.”

“ _Then may this one humbly inquire, what is the honourable youth’s name?”_

Fox-cub’s red brows knotted. “Huh?”

“I asked you your name.”

“Oh. Right. Dunno.”

“You don’t know your name?”

“Nah. I mean, I had an old name, but I kind of wore it out. I need a new one. I just haven’t decided yet.”

“Then what shall I call you?”

“What d’ya think’d suit me?”

“ _Kitsune_.”

The kid’s eyes lit up. “I know that one! Fox spirit!”

“Just a fox.”

“Yeah? Not a ghost-fox? Hunh. Okay. Still. _Kitsune_. Kit. Yeah, Kit, sounds good. And you’re right, I _am_ a fox. You’re pretty quick on the old uptake, aintcha, Tuh-song? Okay, Kit it is. For now. Gotta take it for a test drive before I make it permanent.”

“Kit - “

Sharp teeth flashed a grin. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“Are we in prison?”

Kit stared at him.

“What?” said Tseng.

“Look, mate, I know you’re not from around here, but that was a pretty dumb question, even for a topsider. Who would lock up a bunch of kids and keep them fed for nothing? Nah, this is - this is - it’s kinda like a stock room, I guess.”

“A stock-room?” Tseng thought of the janitorial closets back in the Shinra Building, the plastic jugs of bleach and cans of floor wax arranged on rows of metal shelves.

“Yeah, you know, like a warehouse. A place to stash the goods.”

“And - we’re the goods?”

“Bingo!” Kit snapped his fingers. “Got it in one.”

“They’re going to sell us?” Tseng couldn’t stop the disbelief creeping into his voice.

“Yup.”

“How? Slavery is illegal in Midgar.”

Kit burst out laughing. He hammed it up, rolling on the floor, clutching his sides, making a performance of wiping the tears from his eyes. Tseng waited patiently.

“Oh, mate,” said Kit at last, “You’re fucking hilarious. You wanna know how I knew you were a topsider? That’s how. I’ve seen _that_ before,” he added, pointing at Tseng’s forehead. “That dope Meathead’s got one. And Pachinko Lou. I know what it means. You’ve run away from Shinra, haven’t you? Like a fucking idiot.”

“Come here,” said Tseng.

Kit eyed him warily.

“Just come closer,” said Tseng. “I need to tell you something. It’s a secret. I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

The other boy’s foxy curiosity proved too strong for him. He scooted a little closer.

Tseng closed his fingers round Kit’s upper arm with a force that he knew would leave bruises, pulled him close, and hissed into his ear, “I’m _working_ for Shinra.”

Kit’s yelp of pain became a strangled, “Fuck me!” He clapped both hands over his mouth. His eyes flicked right, then left, checking to make sure the other boys were out of earshot. Through his fingers he whispered, “I knew it. I _knew_ there was something special about you.”

“There was a girl with me. I need to find her.”

“What kind of girl?”

“Just - a girl. A little girl.”

“Pretty girl?”

“She has red-gold hair. She’s about five feet tall.”

“Virgin?”

“What?” Tseng didn’t try to hide his disgust. “She’s thirteen years old.”

“Mate, _I’m_ thirteen years old. This girl, is she working for Shinra too?”

“Yes. Where do you think they’ve taken her?”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Oh man. Come _on._ Where do you think they’ve taken her.? A pretty thirteen year old girl who might be a virgin? She’s worth double me and you put together.”

Tseng’s heart sank. “The HoneyBee Inn?” He didn’t know of any other whorehouses in Wall Market.

Sighing deeply, Kit dragged both hands down his face as if to say, _oh Lord, why must you curse me with such fools?_ “You really don’t know nothing, do you? The HoneyBee’s a class act. They don’t serve pedos. The Don’s got other places for _them_. Hidden places. You know what I mean, right? Not easy to find. You gotta know the right people. Dangerous people. They got passwords and stuff. You follow me?”

For the first time since he’d awoken in this dungeon, a knot of real fear was forming in Tseng’s gut. This was all his fault. If only he’d started running from Huan-Bo a second earlier - If he hadn’t let down his guard - If he’d kept his distance, and used his own materia first - Or if he’d just managed to keep a tighter grip on her, she wouldn’t be in danger now.

“I need to get out of here.” He looked around, searching the walls, the floor, the ceiling for some weak spot he could turn into an exit.

“You planning an escape?” asked Kit excitedly. “Count me in.”

“That door - does it lead to a toilet? Is there a window?”

“We’re four floors underground, man.”

Damn. Okay. Other options? “What about the main door, is it locked?”

“Yeah. And even if it wasn’t, they got guards.”

“How many?”

“Dunno. Half a dozen?”

All right then, the door was not option. What about that air vent, could they get out that way? Tseng didn’t think he would fit through the hole, but Kit would. They could reach the grille if they dragged over a couple of those crates in the corner, and they could use the edge of a spoon to loosen the screws. If he boosted Kit into the ventilation shaft, Kit could crawl along until he found a way out and then come back and - and - open the door somehow -

“How that’s plan coming along, Tuh-song?”

“I’m working on it.”

“You better get a move on. They’ll be here soon.”

The traffickers hadn’t taken his flip-flops. He would have thanked Leviathan, if he were still a believer. “Kit, do you know how to use materia?”

Kit gasped. “You have _materia_?”

“I have Ice. Do you know how to use it?”

“Oh wow, yeah, I mean, sure. ‘Course I do. Pfft, who doesn’t? I’ve used it lots of times. I’m a pro, man. Can I see it?”

Scratch plan B, then. Tseng didn’t want to be responsible for this kid blowing himself up inside an ventilation shaft.

How about a full frontal assault? Eleven boys ought to be able to take down six men if they utilised the element of surprise. The guards wouldn’t expect him to have materia. If they knew, they’d have taken his shoes.

Tseng got to his feet. Kit stood up too. Tseng said, “Get everyone to gather round. Tell them I want to talk to them.”

Kit stared at him like he’d said something crazy. “That’s your plan? Gotta tell you, bad plan.”

“Just do it.”

“Sure thing, boss. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. Hey, guys,” he raised his voice. “C’mere. Topsider wants a word with you.”

Slowly the other boys turned towards Tseng. Their faces were pallid, apathetic. One small boy, seven or eight, looked as if he was running a fever, his eyes glittering, hair plastered to his head with sweat.

The boy with the bloody lip said, “Tell the Wute he can fuck off.” No one else spoke or moved.

“Don’t you want to get out of here?” said Tseng.

What for? Out there. In here. It’s all the same.”

“You’d rather be a slave?”

“I’d rather eat. I’d rather have a roof over my head.” Talking seemed to energise the boy. He got to his feet, leaning against the wall for support. “You’re not thinking of starting something, are you?”

“Topsider’s got a plan,” cried Kit.

“Oh no,” said Split-Lip. “No, I ain’t having that. No way. They’ll kill us. They will, they don’t mess around, they’ll kill us.” He took a wheezing breath. “Hey,” he shouted, “Hey, guards. Help - “

A red blur crossed the room, and Split-Lip lay on the floor, stunned by a punch to the head.

Tseng could see now how Kit had managed to get under the bigger’s boy guard first time around. He moved faster than a striking garuda. Had his feet even touched the floor?

“Want me to kill him, Tuh-song?”

“ _What_?”

Someone was banging their fist against the other side of the metal door. “Quit fighting! Pipe down! Fucking brats. Boss is coming!”

“Leave him,” said Tseng. “Come on,” he said to the other children, going round them one by one. “Get up, go stand over there, behind the door.” Some of them needed his help or Kit’s to get to their feet.

“I don’t wanna,” said the sick boy. “My throat hurts.”

“I’m scared,” said another.

“I want my mum,” muttered a third. “Mum, mum, mum - “

This was turning out to be more difficult than Tseng had anticipated. Perhaps he should have gone with Plan B after all and trusted Kit to figure the materia out. These kids were so undisciplined -

The metal grating of a key in a lock warned him that their time was up. It was now or never, fight or fail. He pulled the flip-flop from his foot and adopted a casting pose. The moment that door opened -

“Look out!” a voice piped up from behind him, “The Wute’s got materia!”

From the other side of the door, silence.

“Shut your fucking trap,” Kit yelled, leaping for the child’s throat.

The door flew open. Several children, trapped behind it, screamed in pain, but Tseng couldn’t stop to help them. He had to cast his Ice, and fast. Half a dozen grown men wielding lead pipes and rope were piling into the room. One clutched what looked like a bat studded with nails.

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a streak of red sailing through the air, shrieking like an eagle. Kit landed on the shoulders of the thug with the nailbat and wrenched it from his hands. _Neat_ , thought Tseng. Then he put everything out of his mind, the better to focus on the cold star burning in his hands, the hot chi running through his veins. He would only get one shot. He needed to take out their leader. Which one was it?

Not - that woman? That blond woman with the purple wing-tip glasses, standing at the back looking on? What the hell was she wearing? A _wedding furisode_? What was it with these people -

“Get _her_!” Kit yelled, swinging the nailbat wildly.

Tseng cast the Ice. It hung in the air above the woman’s head, and she tilted her chin to gaze up at it, curiously unafraid. Tseng knew then that he’d failed, even before the ice dropped and shattered harmlessly against the shimmering barrier she had activated around herself.

A fist drove into his stomach, punching the air from his lungs. Gasping, he fell to his knees. Someone kicked him hard from behind, driving him face down onto the floor. A boot on his neck held him there. The flip-flop was wrenched from his grasp.

As quickly as it had begun, the fight was over.


	5. Chapter 5

The children huddled together on the mattresses, silent, watching. Tseng and Kit were on their knees, each pinned by the weight of the henchmen’s hands pressing down on their shoulders. The blond woman in the furisode paced back and forth in front of them, her high heels click-click-clacking on the concrete floor.

She stopped in front of Tseng. “Let me see his face.”

His hair was grabbed, his head pulled back. She studied him from behind her glasses. Her eyes were blue, but not like Kit’s were blue. There was no light in them, only calculation.

Tseng glared back. Sometimes, when he got angry, he didn’t care who saw it. He knew this was a weakness in him. _A fool lies to his friends, but the wise man never lets his enemies know what he is thinking_.

“You didn’t tell me the Wute was a pretty boy.” She spoke to the men, but she was still looking at Tseng. She saw his anger; it seemed to please her. “ _And_ a fighter.” Her smile promised nothing good.

“Shall we take him to the Don, Angie?”

“No, I don’t think so. Sal likes boys who do what they’re told. This one has a mind of his own - don’t you, Wute?” She nudged him with the pointed toe of her stiletto. Tseng’s glare grew murderous. She laughed. “Look at him! He’d kill us all if he could. Fucking savage. Oh, I know _exactly_ what to do with a flea like you, don’t you worry. Boone, give the Wute his shoe back. You can let me have that materia. Now stand up. We’ve got some walking to do. You too, Sinclair.”

The hands on their necks and in their hair yanked Tseng and Kit to their feet. “Gimme a fuckin’ chance,” Kit muttered. “Bitch.”

The back of her hand with its long red nails came flying at his face, but he was faster: he leaned back and the slap sailed right past him into empty air, throwing her off balance. She would have fallen if one of the henchmen hadn’t caught her. Angrily she shook him off. Kit sniggered.

 _She’ll kill him now,_ thought Tseng. _The idiot._

But she didn’t. She smiled. “Sinclair, you dumb shit. You just sealed your own fate. Boone, tie their hands behind their backs. Actually, tie them together. This little runt won’t be giving us the slip again.”

.

She led them down a corridor lined with identical metal doors. The last door was different: a fancy bronze latticework in the style Tseng had come to think of as Wall Market Wutai. This door turned out to be an elevator. It carried them up four floors and disgorged them into a red velvet lobby area that Tseng recognised as the front foyer of Corneo’s Colosseum.

Lines of topsider tourists were queuing for tickets. Tseng saw that Kit was right: topsiders did look different. Like fish out of water, shiny and clean, their mouths agape. _Omedetai._ What was their word for that? Lucky. No. Naive. He wondered if any of them would protest at the sight of two ragged boys, roped together, being frogmarched through their midst by a gang of pipe wielding thugs; whether even one of them would exclaim, _what are you doing with those poor children?_ But he didn’t really expect it, and he wasn’t surprised when they looked the other way. He was a Wute, after all, and Kit was a slum-rat, and both of them were teenagers. Whatever was happening to them, they probably deserved it.

Out in the street the slum-sunlight was bright enough to make his eyes sting. He guessed it must be late afternoon. Angie led them up the street towards Corneo’s mansion. Was that where she was taking them? No. Just before the bridge, they turned right into broad dirt lane that Tseng knew led to a building site. The fun never stopped in Wall Market, and Wall Market had to keep growing, to accommodate all that fun. Was she planning to fit them out with concrete overcoats? Entomb them in the foundations of some new betting shop or tattoo parlour? No, apparently that wasn’t to be their fate either. A few hundred metres along the lane they took a turn that led to another turn and then another, and with every turn the stench of monsters grew more acrid in his nostrils. He could hear them now, squawking, growling, bleating, roaring. He and Kit were being taken to the monster market.

One last turn brought them out of the alley and into a brighter open area crammed with stalls and cages. The air here was sweaty, dusty, thick with hair, feathers, dander. The henchman named Boone started to sneeze.

“That’s disgusting. Cover your fucking mouth,” Angie snapped at him.

“Sorry,” he said, “It’s my allergies….”

Overhead, striped canvas awnings had been rigged to catch the debris that fell from the plate. Under their feet, planks of wood criss-crossed the muddy ground. This outer section was the live market. Topsiders who came here in search of exotic pets were spoiled for choice, as long as they didn’t look too closely. Skeeskee and headbombers, crammed six to a bamboo crate, pecked out each other’s tail feathers.A ghighee with rheumy eyes and a dull pink coat stood chained to a wooden post, awaiting a doting parent with gil to burn. Didn’t every little princess dream of Daddy buying her her own tame ghighee? Jumpings and muu were popular too, but hard to housetrain; you really needed a yard. How about a little adamantoise? Nothing says _I love you_ like your best girl’s name spelled out in rhinestones on the shell of her own personal adamantoise. No, of course it doesn’t hurt them. Where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling.

Or perhaps you’d consider this adorable baby tonberry, abandoned in the wild by its mother, the poor wee thing. Look how cute it is! Get it young, train it right, it won’t be a problem. All our products are guaranteed de-clawed, de-fanged, de-knifed, de-magicked. You name it, we’ve removed it. One hundred per cent safe. You’ll be doing them a kindness to give them a home. They can’t go back to the wild.

Or maybe sir was looking for something more…virile? Check out this mangy behemoth, pelt sticking to its ribs, curled listlessly at the back of its mythril cage. You’d need a big yard for that pussy! Put enough tranqs in their feed and they’re very manageable.

A dragon for your son’s birthday party? Can do. Six dozen Dual Horn for a weekend shoot on your country estate? We deliver. You’re looking for a young male sahagin, madame? No, what you want it for is absolutely none of our business. We don’t judge.

Whatever your heart desired - a wild bandersnatch, a tame goblin, a Wuteng houseboy, a thirteen year old virgin - Midgar could sell it to you, no questions asked.

They came to the part of the market that specialised in Wuteng wildlife. Tseng recognised an edgehead, its horns drooping from dehydration; a blinded garuda; an ashen-skinned tail vault fading into death. All were trapped in cages too small to turn around in. Who bought these sad creatures? What did people do with them once they had them?

Ever since they’d come into the market, Kit had been getting quieter and quieter, dragging his feet. Now he leaned towards Tseng and muttered, “Makes you sick, dunnit?”

“Keep moving,” sniffled Boone, jabbing his lead pipe into the small of Kit’s back.

Right in the centre of the monster market stood a square brick building, two stories high, that could easily have been mistaken for a small palace from the olden days, with turrets and a green tiled roof and arched entrances on all four sides. It looked cool and dark inside. This was the meat market. The beautiful building was centuries old, older than Midgar, older than Shinra, but whether it had always sold monster meat, or whether it had once served some other, more elevated purpose, no one now alive could remember. You bought meat there. What else did you need to know?

When it became apparent that it was to the meat market and nowhere else that Angie was leading them, Kit planted his heels and refused to take another step. “I ain’t going in there. You can’t make me.” He sounded different. Smaller. Younger. Scared.

“Oh, I think you’ll find I can,” said Angie.

“Fuck you - “

He bolted. With his speed and nimbleness, he would probably have got away, but in his panic he’d forgotten the rope tying him and Tseng together. Tseng was yanked off his feet and hit the ground like a plank of wood; the recoil jerked Kit backwards, landing on top of Tseng in a tangle of flailing limbs. Angie and the henchmen burst out laughing.

“Don’t let him try that again,” said Angie.

Boone picked Kit up and threw him over his shoulder. Tseng scrabbled to his feet so as not to get dragged behind them. “No,” screamed Kit, pummeling Boone’s back with his fists, “No, no, please, don’t! Help! Please! Somebody! Help me!”

Some of the topsiders were beginning to look a little concerned. The stallholders merely laughed.

Angie raised her voice for the benefit of the tourists. “Don’t be alarmed. This hooligan is a known troublemaker. Shinra works to keep the streets of Wall Market safe for its law-abiding citizens.” Pinching Kit’s ear, she added sotto voce, “Look at it this way. You’ve still got a fighting chance. But if you’d rather go straight to the chum-mincer, that can be arranged.”

Kit began to cry. “Please, Angie, please, no, don’t take me in there, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry - “

The boy’s sobs tore at Tseng’s heart. Kit had seemed fearless - foolhardy, even. Anything that could frighten him this badly must be terrible indeed. “Calm down,” he urged, as much for his own sake as for Kit’s. His pulse was beating in his throat with such violence, he thought he might be sick.

“Tuh-song, don’t you understand? She’s taking us to the Pits!”


	6. Chapter 6

Kit lay curled on his bed in the fetal position, clutching his matted hair with both hands. “Oh god,” he kept repeating, “This is bad. Oh god, oh god. This is bad. This is really bad.” He was being no use at all.

They’d been brought to this place through an unremarkable door at the back of the meat market. If you didn’t know what that door signified, you’d never guess. Wall Market was full of secret places, just as Kit had said. They’d descended a long flight of metal steps and walked down a long corridor, Boone carrying a gagged Kit all the way, until they’d come to a room decked out like a nomad’s tent, where an enormously fat man with an oiled handlebar moustache, wearing a white djellabiah, had taken delivery of them. Money had changed hands. How much exactly, Tseng couldn’t say. Quite a lot, from the look of it. He would have liked to know how much he was worth. Then they’d been brought here, given clean pyjamas and warm water to wash with, and their dirty clothes had been taken away, and a maid had brought a tray with a pot of sweet tea and two bowls of beans and rice. Tseng had eaten his fair share and then lain down to sleep for an hour. Whatever fate lay in store for them, he wanted his mind to be fresh.

He’d advised Kit to try to get some rest too, but from the look of things, Kit hadn’t managed it.

At least this new room into which they’d been put was several cuts above the holding cell at the Colosseum. By Tseng’s reckoning, they were just as far underground, maybe further, and close enough to the sewers for the air they breathed to be permeated with that unmistakable combination of chlorine, mako, and shit. But they weren’t actually _in_ the sewers, so things could be worse, and this room, though no bigger than a standard Shinra janitor closet, was furnished with rugs on the floor and two real beds, with mattresses, pillows, sheets, and colourful blankets. The door was locked, of course.

“Oh god, god, god, god, god - “

“Pull yourself together,” Tseng told him. “If you want to survive, you need to keep a cool head.”

“Survive?” Kit gave a hollow laugh. “What the fuck are you on, man? This is the Pits. The _Pits._ ”

“What are the Pits?”

Slowly Kit lifted himself up on one elbow to give Tseng a long assessing stare. Finally, he sighed. “I just don’t know, man.”

“What don’t you know?”

“Are you for real? Or is asking dumbass questions your lame way of taking my mind off the fact that we’re doomed?”

“You’re afraid of this place. You think I should be afraid too. Why?”

“Oh my god,” Kit groaned, rolling onto his back. “You really don’t know, do you? You are suck a fucking topside baby, man. Look, you know the place we were in before? Corneo’s battle arena? That place is like the smiley face of Wall Market. Fight to the knockout, all nice and clean for the casual punters. The Pits is the same idea, only it’s a snuff box.”

“A snuff box.”

“Yeah. You know, fight to the death. The Pits is for punters who get their rocks off watching people die.”

A chill crept over Tseng at those words. He had no reason to doubt what Kit was saying. That human beings were capable of such depravity, he knew. That Wall Market should host such events came as little surprise. It didn’t call itself the Entertainment Capital of Midgar for nothing.

“I see,” he said.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“You really are cold-blooded. Is it true, what they say about you?”

“About me?”

“All Wutes are snakes in disguise.”

“Any moment now,” said Tseng, “I”m going to turn myself into a snake and slither under that door.”

Hope flared in Kit’s eyes. “For _real_?”

He acted like he knew everything, but he was only thirteen years old. “Can I ask you something?” said Tseng.

The boy’s thin shoulders slumped. “That was cruel, man.”

“Why did you attach yourself to me?”

“Attach?”

“Back at the other place. You saved my food for me. You fought with me. Why? You don’t know me.”

“I needed to get out of there, and I thought you were my best shot.”

An honest answer. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Shoot.”

“Why does that woman hate you?”

“Angie’s a psycho bitch.”

“Yes, but she hates you. What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do nothing to her. She’s just pissed that I tried to get away from her, is all. Nobody’s allowed to do that. Look, Angie is - Angie works for the Don, right? She calls it recruitment. She’s a pimp and a - a - I don’t know the word for it. He likes to know everything that’s going on, so he can keep his fist on this town. Angie makes that her business. She’s got a whole buncha little kids runnin’ around doing her spying for her. They didn’t even pay us in gil, just gave us these crappy tin medals you can trade at certain places for food and shit. If you don’t have a place to sleep she’d fix you up with something. And hyper and weed and that shit, she’ll give you that too. ‘Oh, poor baby,’” Kit crooned in falsetto, “”Are you tired? Are you sad? Angie knows how to fix that.’ She gets you on her hook so you can’t escape.”

“You were on her hook?”

“I was thrashin’. What she runs, what they run, it’s a - it’s a - I mean it’s like a factory, not a factory, what’s that thingy that moves things? A conveyer belt. To the meatshack.”

“The meat market?”

“The meat shack. Meat _shack_. I thought you spoke our language. Come on, you know what I mean. The place they took your girlfriend.”

“A whorehouse?”

Kit laughed. “Yeah, that’s quaint. If you’re cute, you end up in the meatshack. That’s where they were gonna take you, you know. Before you tried to kill her with that fucking ice cube.”

“I’m not cute,” said Tseng.

“You kinda are, though.”

“I don’t think anyone would call me cute.”

“You look like a girl, man. Ain’t nobody told you that before?”

They had, as it happened, but Tseng preferred not to dwell on that. “Just go on with your story.”

“Right, well, like I said, if you’re cute, then they’ll flog your ass. If you ain’t cute, you still end up working your tail off for Corneo one way or the other. He owns this whole town and everybody in it. I just wanted to get out. That’s all. I mean, is that so much to ask? I just wanted to leave this shithole and never come back. But for that, you need money. Real gil. Not moogle fucking medals.”

“You were stealing. From Angie? From Corneo?”

“Do I look stupid to you? This town is crawling with easy marks with fat wallets in their back pockets.”

“You got caught pickpocketing?”

“Oh puh-lease,” Kit scoffed, “Don’t insult me. The thing is, right, we’re supposed to hand over the takings to Goblin Bob and he gives us those moogle medals in exchange, and when you’re a little kid that seems like a sweet deal, because those medals… I mean, when you’re a kid they look like they’re worth something, innit? Then you grow up and you figure out what money is and what you could do with it if you had some. So I started keeping a cut for myself. Just fifty or sixty gil at a time. I didn’t want to make them suspicious.

Anyway, last week, finally, I got enough put away, so I went to this chick I thought I could trust, her name’s Becky but they call her The Notary, she makes fake topside IDs. But she ratted me out, didn’t she? And they let me think I was getting away with it. They let me buy the fuckin’ ticket and everything, and there I am sitting on the train waiting for it to pull outta the station thinking I’m the shit and telling myself, _good life here I come_ , and then that bonehead Boone looms over me laughing like I’m the sickest joke he’s ever seen, and the next thing I know I’m waking up on a concrete floor beside your smart arse.”

Kit heaved a long sigh. “And now here we are. You got anything you feel like getting off _your_ chest, Tuh-song? I reckon we got maybe an hour to live if we’re lucky.”

“Do you always give up so easily?”

Kit sputtered, “Hey, don’t you call me a quitter. I ain’t no quitter. I done nothing but fight to stay alive since the day I was born. But this hole we’re in, there’s no way out this time. Unless - “ 

The light in his eyes, which had been flickering on and off, suddenly blazed like a supernova, and he threw himself back on the bed, arms flung wide, laughing deliriously. “Hah! That’s it! Oh my god. No way! No fuckin’ way! They’re coming for you, ain’t they? Shinra. That’s how you can act so cool.”

“That’s right,” Tseng lied.

For better or worse, he and Kit were in this together. Probably they were going to die together. But if they lived, it wouldn’t be because of some miracle. It would be because they worked together - and for that to happen, he needed a Kit who believed they could win.

“Oh my great giddy aunt! Shinra to the rescue!” Kit blew a sound meant to imitate a trumpet charge. “Man, I can’t _believe_ this. So how do they know where we are? You got a tracker on you or something?”

“A microchip.”

“Oh man. Really? A microchip, that’s so dope. Can I see it?”

Having anticipated this question, Tseng was about to point to the tattoo on his forehead. However, just as Kit finished speaking, the door opened and a woman dressed like a maid came in, carrying a large holdall. “Master Bossuet says you must put these on.” She kept her face averted as she spoke. Tseng was grateful. If there was pity in her eyes, he didn’t want to see it.

She placed the holdall on the end of Kit’s bed, went out, and had almost closed the door when she came back to ask, “What are your names? Master Bossuet wants to know.”

Tseng opened his mouth, but Kit shushed him. “I’m Fox, and this is Songbird.”

The maid nodded curtly and withdrew, locking the door behind her.

Tseng raised one deliberate eyebrow. He’d learnt when he was quite small that not many people could do this. “Songbird?”

“You were gonna give them your real name. Never do that. And I like Fox. I almost like it more than Kit, and _way_ better’n Sinclair. _Sinclair_. Ugh. Sounds like some posh git from a la-did-ah topside school, dunnit? R.I.P. Sinclair, you’re dead to me now. Anyway,” Kit started rummaging through the holdall, “Let’s see what she brung us. Oh, hey, look at this! Bet you recognise this, huh?”

He was holding up a Crescent Unit uniform. A fake Crescent Unit uniform: a one-piece made of polyester that zipped up the back. It came with a cardboard gunblade.

“If that’s for you,” said Kit, “I guess _this_ must be for me - “

With a dramatic flourish, he pulled something made of shiny black vinyl from the holdall and flicked his wrists so that it unfurled like a flag.

The two of them stared at it in dismay.

“That’s….” Kit’s voice tailed away.

“A SOLDIER uniform.” Tseng finished the thought for him. “First Class.”

They looked at each other, understanding.

“Shit,” breathed Kit, sitting back on his heels. “So that’s it. They’re gonna try to make us fight _each other_.”

“Wait,” said Tseng, “There’s more.”

Something rolled up in a yellow plastic bag was lying at the bottom of the holdall. Something white and furry. At first Tseng thought it must be a kind of puppet, or maybe a clip-on tail he was supposed to wear, because after all, Wutes were animals, weren’t they? But when he held it up in the air to take a better look, he realised what it really was. They both did.

“No,” said Kit. “No. I ain’t wearing that. No way.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Put it on,” said Tseng. 

He was sitting at the foot of one bed, resting his chin on his knuckles. Kit sat at the foot of the other bed, his posture almost mirroring Tseng’s own. The room was so small and the beds were so close together they could have touched hands without straightening their arms - but Kit’s hands were firmly trapped between his knees. The costumes, which upon closer examination had turned out to be both mended and stained, were big enough to fit two grown men, so they’d put them on over their pyjamas. The silver wig from the yellow plastic bag lay on the floor between them.

“I ain’t wearing that thing. It’s sick. They’re sick. This is so sick.”

“The wise man chooses his battles. Don’t choose this.”

“Tuh-song - “

“Yes?”

“What if they give me a real sword?”

Tseng had been wondering the same thing. He had his absurd cardboard weapon. Kit had been given nothing, yet. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

“I wish Shinra would come and rescue us _now_.”

“They’re coming. Don’t worry. But we might…”

“What? Might what, Tuh-song?”

“Have to put on a bit of a show first. You can do that, can’t you?”

“Shinra _are_ coming, ain’t they? You wouldn’t lie to me?”

“I’m not lying to you, Kit. Trust me, we are going to be fine. Now put that damn wig on. Be good. You don’t want them to suspect anything.”

“If you say so.” Gripping the wig with his bare toes, Kit flipped it into the air, caught it one handed, and tried to tug it down over his uncombed mat of red hair. “It doesn’t fit. See?”

“Well, just - Balance it.”

The door opened. The maid didn’t enter, and she didn’t speak. She merely gestured. _Come along now. It’s time._

_._

Tseng had assumed the Pits would be a copy in miniature of Corneo’s Colosseum: a mockery of a real battle arena just as he’d been turned into a mockery of a Wuteng warrior and Kit had been turned into a mockery of Shinra’s only SOLDIER: First Class. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

They were in the sewers.

Specifically, they were in some kind of holding tank or lock in the sewer complex from which the water had been drained. It could be filled again simply by pulling a lever. No doubt that was the end game. Wash away the evidence for the sahagin to feed on. Would Commander Veld try to find out what had happened to him? Would he even wonder? Or would he simply assume Tseng had run away, like all the other Wute boys with the mark of shame on their foreheads.

The tank was only about three meters deep. It had been turned into a makeshift cage by placing a double layer of chocobo wire over the top and lashing the wire to the guardrails. Left to his own devices, Tseng would have been out of there in five minutes, tops. But the henchman with the cattleprod wasn’t about to let him try.

The low, red-brick, barrel-vaulted ceiling amplified the voices of the punters, who stood lining the guard rail, impatient for the show to begin. To keep his thoughts occupied, Tseng counted their faces, all male and all in some strange way identical… Unless that was his mind playing tricks? He made it twenty-five. So few? From the noise they were generating, he’d have guessed twice as many. Evidently watching teenagers in fancy dress fight each other to the death was a niche interest even in Wall Market. How comforting.

Kit, barefooted, came slithering towards him across the slimy flagstones. “Can you see them yet?” he whispered anxiously. “Shinra - are they here?”

The vinyl SOLDIER costume looked like a deflated balloon on Kit’s skinny frame. And that odious wig - it wouldn’t stay still. It kept trying to escape down the back of his head, and then, when he tugged it back into place, it slipped forward over his eyes, blinding him. Wasn’t it bad enough that he was thirteen years old and about to die? Did they have to make him ridiculous into the bargain?

“Yes. I see them.” Tseng reached for Kit’s hand and squeezed it the way he’d squeezed Cissnei’s back at the diner. “Don’t worry. Stay strong. It won’t be long now.”

One of the punters set up a chant. Stamp-stamp, clap-clap: “Seph-i-roth!” Others began to join in, louder and louder, intolerably so. In another moment, Tseng would no longer be able to hear himself think -

Silence fell. Tseng turned around. On the walkway above the sluice-gate stood the incredibly fat man in the white djellabiah, one hand raised for the audience’s attention. “My fellow gourmets - “ he began.

The punters roared their approval.

Tseng was thinking that if nothing else, he still had the Heal materia concealed in his left flip-flop. For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to Angie that he might have a materia in each shoe.

Was there any point, though? Wouldn’t Heal just prolong the agony?”

“ - Our valiant troops,” cried the fat man, “Represented here by the heroic boy-soldier Sephiroth - “

“Seph-i-roth!” Stamp; clap. “Seph-i-roth!”

“Tuh-song,” said Kit, his voice high and shaky, “Where’s Shinra? Why don’t they stop this?”

“Stay calm,” said Tseng. “It’s okay.” He was thinking that if they gave Kit a real sword he could give Kit the Heal materia and take the weapon. He wouldn’t claim to be an expert but he knew the basics, he’d had a few lessons back at the Temple. With a katana in his hands, they might have a fighting chance - 

“And so, gentlemen, we present to you, for your delectation, our faithful recreation of the battle of Baykovo!”

Just last week, that had been. It was all over the news. _Baykovo_. Tseng had never been there, knew it only by name, a village in the southern flood-plains a dozen or so leagues east of his own home village in the mountains; a nothing, nowhere, end-of-the road place like all the places villages boys like him dreamed of leaving, never to return. Though he’d never been there, Tseng could picture exactly what Baykovo had looked like before Shinra burnt it to the ground. The Shinra News network had reported fifteen thousand Wutai casualties. The entire population of Baykovo village, every man, woman and child, couldn’t have numbered fifteen hundred. Thirty-six Shinra troopers had died. And Sephiroth, their teenage secret weapon, was now famous.

Through the roars and cheers Tseng picked up a grating sound, metal again metal. The sluice-gate - they were raising it. Was that it, was that what these ghouls had come to see, a drowning? Tseng braced himself for a rush of water that never came.

Something growled.

“Tuh-song - ” Kit, trembling from head to foot, was squeezing his hand so hard it hurt. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m scared.“

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

What was on the other side of that gate? A dragon? No, it didn’t sound big enough. It sounded dog-like. A wolf? A bandersnatch?

“Please,” Kit whimpered, “Not a sahagin. Please anything but a sahagin - “

“Stop holding the Wute’s hand, you little faggot!” screamed a voice from above. “What is he, your boyfriend?”

“You’re supposed to be mortal enemies!” shouted another.

The red-faced monster came slinking under the sluice gate like a nervous cat, pausing after every step to shake the drops of water from its paws. “Falla Ranga!” cried Tseng in amazement. How could this be? Were they really so lucky? He might just as well have shouted out, _We’re saved!_

The Falla Ranga was a female, a young one, not fully grown. Her adult whiskers hadn’t finished coming through yet, and her crest was more pink than gold. Tseng could see she was very frightened. Her long, velvety, rabbit ears lay flat against her neck; her ribbon of a tail was curled up tight between her haunches, and her teeth were bared in a grimace of submission. Everything in her demeanour begged _please, don’t hurt me._ She gave the boys one glance, then crept into the nearest corner and lay pressed against the wall, panting.

This wasn’t the thrill the punters had paid for. “What’s wrong with that foulander? Is she sick?”

Between the Falla Ranga and Kit, it would be hard to say who was shaking more. Falla Ranga weren’t considered ready for battle until they were six year old. This one had probably started her training a few months ago. Tseng would have been surprised if she could throw a fireball any further than her own muzzle.

How had she come to be here? What terrible twist of fate had brought her to Midgar? Tseng could only guess. Maybe the Temple, having provoked this war, finding itself short of manpower, had rushed its half-trained boys and pups into battle, and this little one had got lost in the confusion, wandering the field bewildered, afraid, until some Shinra trooper had thrown a noose around her neck and nailed her into a crate and shipped her to the monster market in Wall Market. Or perhaps she’d been taken prisoner as she lay curled up next to the corpse of the _Engetsu_ on whom she’d been imprinted, and from whom she never could have been parted, except by force. Equally possibly, she’d been captured in a raid on a barracks, or from a breeding shrine. All he knew for sure was that she was a spoil of war.

“This sucks,” shouted the punters. “Make it do something.”

The enormously fat man snapped his fingers, and the henchman with the cattle-prod tied to the end of a long wooden pole ran forward and delivered a jolt to the Falla Ranga’s sensitive rump. Uttering a strangled yelp, she jumped to her feet and scuttled across to the opposite corner, where she lay with her tongue hanging out, dark eyes round with terror.

The crowd roared their displeasure.

Tuh-song,” Kit whispered, “What should we do now?”

Crouching down to make himself smaller, and thus less intimidating, Tseng inched towards the terrified beast, murmuring the soothing mantras he had learnt at the Temple in the days when it was his job, as lowest and least of the Imperial Scholars, to muck out the battle Rangas’ stalls. “Whist, whist, little queen, good queen, sweet queen. Quell your fire. The field is ours. The fight is ended…”

The soft tips of her ears twitched. Her eyes asked, _can I trust you?_

“Kill it,” the crowd chanted. “Come on, Sephiroth, show us what you’re made of. Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”

“No!” Kit shouted back, stamping his foot. “I won’t. _You_ kill it.”

Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. A couple of the punters started tearing at the edges of the chocobo-wire cage, fumbling to undo the lashes, and within seconds they were all at it, pushing and shoving one another in their eagerness to take matters into their own hands. In vain the enormously fat man bellowed at them to calm down. They had come for blood, and they would have it.

“Oi!”

Blinding white light filled Tseng’s field of vision as a bolt of lightning split the air asunder. The thunderclap lifted him off his feet, slamming him against the sewer’s brick wall. _Kit_ , he thought, _I’m sorry I lied_ \- or maybe he said it out loud, there was no way be sure and no time to figure it out: a wave of pain was smashing into his body, and another, and another, each pulling him further out into a cold dark bottomless sea. He couldn’t fight it. He had no strength length. All he could do was let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the Crisis Core wiki:
> 
> "Foulander" is a mistranslation of the katakana for "Fall Rangda" carried over from Final Fantasy VII.
> 
> Rangda is the demon queen of the Leyaks, according to traditional Balinese mythology. Terrifying to behold, the child-eating Rangda leads an army of evil witches against the leader of the forces of good.


	8. Chapter 8

He’d fallen asleep on his arm again. Damn it. Why did this keep happening? He wanted to turn over so he could get more comfortable, but in order to turn over he needed to push with his arm and the stupid arm wasn’t taking orders. Wake up, arm. Isn’t there something important we need to do? Wake up, wake up -

“There he is.” The speaker had a deep, husky voice, a smoker’s voice. Tseng didn’t recognise him, but he sounded friendly.

Someone shook his shoulder. “Tuh-song, are you alive? Can you hear me? It’s me, Sinc - I mean, Kitsune.”

“Kit - “

Many things became apparent to Tseng when he opened his eyes. Kit was unharmed, and kneeling right beside him. They were still in the sewers. He hadn’t been unconscious long. Smoke lingered in the air. It was very quiet. He was lying in a puddle, and the whole of his right side was soaked to the skin.

He began struggling to sit up. Kit slid an arm behind his shoulders, taking most of his weight. The kid really was stronger than he looked. How about that?

“Whoa, slow down there, kiddo,” said the friendly voice. “You just broke your arm in three places. D’you feel some tingling?”

What Tseng felt was a thousand pins and needles prickling all the way from shoulder to his fingertips, as if they were knitting him a brand new set of bones. It wasn’t pleasant. “Yes.”

“That’s the Cure materia working.” The speaker, a tall young man, squatted down behind Kit, giving Tseng a chance to see his face properly. It wasn’t a face you could quickly forget: tanned, lean and handsome, with a stubbled jaw and laughing eyes, the whole framed by a pair of exuberant ginger sideburns. Tseng knew he’d seen this man before. But where?

“Don’t try to stand just yet,” said Mr Ginger. “If you’ve never been healed before you’re going to feel a bit woozy for the new few minutes. That’s normal, so don’t fight it. The name’s Charlie, by the way.”

The dark blue suit Charlie was wearing, plus his white collared shirt, plus that beautiful silk tie embroidered with the black on black diamond logo, plus the fact that everything had blown to Hades moments after he arrived on the scene, were adding up in Tseng’s mind. “You’re a Turk.”

“Charlie’s Shinra!” Kit exclaimed. “Shinra came, Tuh-song, just like you say they would. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“Better late than never, right?” said Charlie.

“What happened?”

“You got knocked out,” said Kit. “Gettin’ to be a bad habit, man.”

“I flushed the shit down the shitter,” said Charlie.

“He threw a _bomb_! It was so dope, man!” Kit’s hands gesticulated wildly. “Everything was like, _boom!_ and you went flying off that way, and I went flying off this way, and there was all this smoke, and all those sick bastards are like _cough-cough, my eyes, help me_ , and I’m like, _choke and die, you gross pervs_ , and then Shinra here gets his gun out and it’s like _bang bang! Take that, suckers!_ And they all legged it. Except for that lardy-arse in the lady’s nightgown. His little fat legs couldn’t handle the pressure. I think he might have had a heart attack.”

Charlie chuckled. “Lardy-arse in a lady’s nightgown. You’ve got a way with words, kiddo.”

High praise indeed. Suddenly tongue-tied, Kit smiled shyly, while a pink blush of pleasure rushed over his face right up to the roots of his hair.

“You kids did well,” said Charlie. “The Chief’ll be very pleased, Tseng.”

Tseng wondered what he’d done to make the old Turk so pleased with him. The mission hadn’t been accomplished. Nothing had been achieved. All he’d managed to do was stay alive.

“And me!” cried Kit. “I was with Tuh-song the whole way. I can be useful. I helped you tie up Lardy-Arse, didn’t I, Charlie? I wanna work for Shinra too.”

“Well, that’s not up to me. But I’m sure the Chief will want to meet you.”

“Ah yeah!” Kit fist-pumped triumphantly. “Score!”

Finally the pins and needles in Tseng’s arm were fading. He got to his feet, gripping Kit’s shoulder a couple of times when the lingering dizziness made him feel a little unsteady. To Charlie he said, “Were you following us all the time?”

“You don’t think the Chief would’ve thrown you in the deep end and told you to sink or swim, without setting a lifeguard to make sure you didn’t drown, did you? That is to say, I must admit I took my eye off the ball at the Colosseum. If I’d so much as suspected Angie Cortina might ship you to Bossuet, I’d never have left you there. I thought you were safe, and I wanted to get Cissnei sorted, so - “

“Is she all right?” asked Tseng.

“Oh yes, she’s fine. That kid’s made of rubber.”

“Where is she?”

“In a safe house. I’m taking you there now.”

“Did she know you were shadowing us?”

The Turk hesitated. Either that look in his eyes meant, _who the fuck do you think you are, kid, firing all these questions at me when I just saved your bacon_? or it meant, _you’re a cheeky bastard, kid, but I like you_. Tseng couldn’t quite tell which. Both, maybe.

“You know she didn’t,” said Charlie at last.

“How do I know that?”

“Because if she’d known, you would have known. You guys were partners. I went to extract her first because I thought she was in more imminent danger than you were. It never crossed my mind you’d try to break out of Corneo’s fucking Colosseum. By the time I got back from sorting Cissnei, you’d vanished and no one wanted to tell me where they’d taken you. I had to go see the Don personally to get him to tell Angie to tell me what she’d done with you.”

“Did you kill her?” Kit demanded.

Charlie gave him a thoughtful look. “Yeah, you’re not exactly her favourite person, are you, Red? Sorry to have to tell you, but she’s untouchable. For the time being, anyway. Are you okay to walk now, Tseng? We need to get going. Hey - have you guys got real clothes on under those - those - things?”

The Crescent Unit costume! Tseng had forgotten all about it. Twisting his arm over his shoulder, he groped blindly for the zipper and tugged. It was stuck tight. Fuck. _Fuck_. “Fuck - “

Kit was behind him in an instant. “I got you!” he cried, and with both hands took hold of the fabric and ripped the zipper apart. The boys tore off the insulting costumes and threw them down onto the wet flagstones. Charlie, meanwhile, walked over to where the silver wig had fallen, picked it up, contemplated it for a moment as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes, and then with a snort of derision tossed it onto the pile. Taking a matchbox from his pocket, he struck one and flicked it. The black vinyl of the fake SOLDIER uniform burst into blue flames.

This sudden flare of light drove back the shadows and revealed the Falla Ranga, lying on her side in the farthest corner of the tank. Soft rabbit ears hung limply round her face. Her mouth had fallen open, long tongue lolled out across the floor. She wasn’t moving.

Tseng could see she was dead. He moved towards her all the same.

“Kid,” said Charlie. “Leave it.”

He needed to know. It was important.

She’d been shot. The Turk must have shot her. The back of her head had been blown clean away. The hole between her eyes was no bigger than his thumbnail. There was hardly any blood on her face. A quick and, he hoped, painless end was the kindest thing anyone could have done for her. He knew that. Intellectually, he knew it. She could never have gone home, any more than he could. She wouldn’t have survived long in Midgar.

The moment before the bomb went off, she had been stretching out her neck to sniff his open hand. He’d almost persuaded her to trust him.

She was only an animal. You couldn’t explain things to animals. Animals couldn’t understand why they had to suffer, and thus their suffering was meaningless.

“Hey kid,” said Charlie. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” said Tseng. “You did the right thing. Can we go now?”

The chocobo-wire cage looked as if a fist of flame had punched right through it, blackening the metal and curling it back on itself. They climbed the stairs to the walkway. Over by the ladder that led up to the next level, the fat man in the djellabiah lay bound and gagged, like a wrapped parcel someone had placed on the hall table so as not to forget to post it. To reach the ladder, they had to step over him.

“You kids go on,” said Charlie. “I need to have a word with Bossuet here. Go as fast as you can and wait for me by the exit. I won’t be long.”

At the top of the ladder a short corridor led to what looked like a break room for the sewage workers. It had lockers, tables, and a bench. The boys went in, leaving the door open. “Let’s wait for him here,” said Kit.

“He said to go on.”

“I know, but… There might be sahagin. Can’t we wait here?”

Tseng had no objections. He sat on the bench. Kit sat beside him, perched on the very edge of the seat. His hands, clenched into white-knuckled fists, lay on his knees.

A row of vending machines sold potions, coffee, Icicle brand water. “My ears hurt,” said Kit. He was trembling, but trying not to show it.

“How much?” said Tseng. “A lot?”

“Just a little.”

“It must have been the explosion.”

“Yeah.”

“If your ear-drums have been damaged, Shinra’s doctors can fix it.”

“Okay,” said Kit.

They sat for a while in silence, waiting.

“When I’m a Turk,” said Kit, “I won’t call myself Kit.”

“I thought you liked Kit.”

“I did. I do. It’s a solid name, don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t have run with it if I didn’t like it. But I think I’ve taken it as far as it can go.”

Tseng had to smile. “So, what will you call yourself?”

“Dunno yet. Something boss. Charlie’s a boss name. What’s a name like Charlie?”

Tseng gave it some thought. “Harry?”

“Lame. I want a new name, a name nobody’s ever had but me. Tseng - “

“What?”

“I’m thirsty. Aren’t you thirsty? Look at that Icicle Water. Look how cold it is.”

“I don’t have any money.”

From the floor below came the muffled crack of a gunshot.

A faint sigh, like the exhalation of a long-held breath, escaped Kit’s lips. Tseng watched his fists unclench. Slowly his muscles surrendered their vigilance, and as he relaxed he let himself lean sideways, bit by bit, inch by inch, until his head came to rest against Tseng’s shoulder, and he closed his eyes.

“Reno,” he said dreamily.

“What’s that?”

“A boss name,” Reno smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was my absolute pleasure and honour to be assigned Greenjudy as my fix exchange giftee this year. I've been a dedicated fan of her meticulous crafted, beautifully written stories since way back in the days when Livejournal was still a thing. I've always wished I could write the way she does, but since my muse has its own way of doing things, the next best thing is to be given the chance to write a story based on one of her prompts - or, in this case, two. 
> 
> The prompts which inspired this fic are:
> 
> 1\. The Turks are forced to take on a very dangerous job. Who has put them in this position, and why? More importantly, will they all make it out alive?
> 
> This could be an intricate, playful, caper or heist type of story, or a very serious story. Make it Tseng/Reno and make my day, but I'd also love a gen story like this. It can be set in any time period and any location you find interesting; it can include Before Crisis Turks if you like. There can be Heavy Geopolitical Ramifications, or it could be a tight-focus story set in a single neighborhood in Old Midgar: your call.
> 
> 2\. Midgar has been wrecking lives since it first rose out of the dirt. Even after it comes to ruin, it leaves a mark. Show me its beauty and terror.
> 
> The story-setting for this exploration of Midgar could be Veld, private-eye style, solving a little problem for someone who lives in his building: think Hopper's Nighthawks, think noir. This could be lonely Valentine doing some grim search-and-rescue in the carcass of post-Meteor Midgar. This could be day-drinking Reeve forced to confront the gulf between his architectural plans and the real-world misery his work's made possible.
> 
> This story could happen at any point in Midgar's history. The main thing is to let Midgar be the 'main character' of the story. Show me its corners, its razor-sharp edges, its pockets of mercy. Show me the holes where people fall through, to their deaths or to freedom.
> 
> The title was inspired by what is probably my all-time favourite poem, "Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake. In particular, these lines
> 
> "A Robin Red breast in a Cage/Puts all heaven in a rage."
> 
> and
> 
> "He who shall teach the Child to Doubt/The rotting Grave shall ne'er get out"
> 
> and probably the most famous:
> 
> "Every Morn and every Night  
> Some are Born to sweet delight  
> Some are Born to sweet delight  
> Some are Born to Endless Night"
> 
> Whether it's sweet delight or endless night that await Tseng, Cissnei and Reno is something the reader must decide for themselves. 
> 
> Judy, I hope you liked this: I wrote it for you.


End file.
